Iowa: The Middle Land

4. Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century

Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century T hroughout the nineteenth century Iowa witnessed rapid economic growth. Although railroad building was of paramount importance, economic expansion proceeded on many levels. Soon after initial settlement in any area, towns appeared and quickly became centers of economic activity for surrounding areas. Within communities, craftsmen and professionals set up shop, ready to serveboth town and countryside.Althoughdisrupted by the CivilWar, settlement and economic development quickly resumed in 1865.Five years later, with four railroad lines spanning the stateand more lines under construction ,other industrial operations would soon appear. In effect, during the period from 1833 to 1870, Iowans laid the economic foundation for A scene in the 1890s near Clintonshowing the steamboat W.J. Young,Jr., alongside a towboat moving a log raft downriver. Photo courtesyof the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City. 54 I. THEEARLY YEARS their state, perhaps best described as the first economic phase, both to serve themselves and to allow for future growth. After completion of extensive railroad lines, the state witnessed the beginning of innumerableindustries , as described in Chapter 13.This chapter, however, deals with the first economic phase, consisting of initial community settlements along the Mississippi, development of the steamboat industry, and construction of major railroads. Because of activities in the first phase, by 1880 Iowa contained an excellent system of transportation, of which officials could boast that no one in the state was ever more than eight miles from a railroad . In 1849 Sjoerd Sipma, a recent immigrant to Pella, wrote to friends in Holland about his new life in America. An astute observer of the local scene, Sipma related to prospectiveimmigrants what they might expect in Iowa. He explained that transportation was a problem, as it was too expensive to ship goods from his home in Marion County to the Mississippi River: "If all merchandise had to be transported to the Mississippi from here, farmers would go bankruptbecause it takes forty hours for the goods to be driven down to the river. If the wagoners take the goods, the cost is seventy-five cents per hundred pounds." But with typical frontier optimism , Sipma dismissed the transportation problem, convinced that within three years the Des Moines River, which flowedonly a few miles south of Pella, would be capable of carrying river traffic, much like the Mississippi .' Sipma's letter underscores the extreme importanceof transportation, even in a newly settled area. Studies such as those of the Savagefamily in Henry County show that often within the second year of settlement,fanners produced surplusesthat could be disposed of only if shippingfacilities existed.As Sipma indicated,the first major effort to provide such facilities came with river travel. Steamboatshad begun operatingon the Upper Mississippi in 1823,and following that, river travel became common. Even before agriculturalproductssuch as grain and pork became major commodities, steamboats were carrying a wide assortment of passengers and cargo.With St. Louis as a major collection point for military personnel and provisions, the army had used steamboats as early as 1823for sending soldiers and provisionsto military forts on the Upper Mississippi. On the return trip, boats carried cargo produced in the area, such as lead 4. ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT IN THE NINETEENTHCENTURY 55 products and fur pelts, down to the ports of St. Louis and New Orleans. While the fur trade gradually dwindled because of the increasing scarcity of beaver and other small fur-bearing animals, lead mining continued in the Upper MississippiValley into the 1860s.Workmen had developedlead mines in the 1820s near Galena, Illinois, located along the Galena River, a tributary of the Mississippi. Before the appearance of steamboats, lead had been floated downriver to St. Louis in canoes or on flatboats. The development of steamboating on the Upper Mississippi, however, allowed for expansion of the lead industry. As deposits began to play out in the Galena area, the industry moved northwestward to the area around present -dayDubuque; by the 1850sthat community boasted it was the nation's major producer of lead. In the following decade the center of lead mining moved northward to yet another site, southwestern Wisconsin. Because steamboating had begun on the Upper Mississippi in the 1820s, a transportation system was already in place when permanent settlement began in Iowa in 1833. By the 1850s agricultural commodities such as grain made up a major part of riverboat trade; also by that date, steamboat companies had come to rely on an...